


Flashing Forward and Back

by dyad (johnnycake)



Series: Switchblades and Leather [42]
Category: The Outsiders (1983), The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: M/M, Sexual Assault Mention, abuse mention, csa mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 06:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18845368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnycake/pseuds/dyad
Summary: Johnny and Ponyboy get sick at the same time and everyone feels differently about it.





	Flashing Forward and Back

**Author's Note:**

> i got this as a request and it took me forever to write this (cause i rly did not plan on making this so long), but i finally finished it!! :D

Johnny Cade got sick all the time. Having third degree burns cover ninety percent of his body plus a broken back that was still healing after surgery seemed to have drastically lowered his body’s ability to fight off infection, but it wasn’t just that. Johnny had been sick all the time long before the church fire and all that came before and after. It was the stress of the life he’d led, the constant anxiety of wondering when he was going to get beat next, and now the fear of being imprisoned for a murder that he still felt guilty about and had not meant to commit to begin with.

The same could not be said of Ponyboy Curtis.

Unlike Johnny who was sick every other week, it was rare for Ponyboy to get sick at all. Even now with the added stress of his friend being in and out of the hospital, his friend nearly dying, the both of them nearly dying first in the park the night of Bob’s death and then again less than a week later in the burning church.

In fact, no one in the gang could remember the last time the youngest of them had had more than a mild case of the common cold.

It was why when Darry Curtis heard the floorboards creaking near dawn that morning, heading in the direction of the bathroom, he didn’t think anything of it. It was probably Soda getting up for work or Ponyboy, up early for school. He was too asleep to hear the retching into the toilet, even though the bathroom door was left open, too tired to realize the bathroom light hadn’t come on. It wasn’t until he heard the floorboards creaking again and they sound stopped in his open doorway instead of going back down the hall that he finally opened his eyes.

Ponyboy stood in the door frame, his silhouette all that was visible in the muted blue pre-dawn light. His hair was a mess and though Darry couldn’t his expression from his vantage point, the faint stench of old vomit wafted into his room.

“Pony?” he asked, his voice thick and soft with sleep and concern. He propped himself up on one elbow, trying to blink the crust from his eyes. “You alright?”

“Darry.” Ponyboy’s voice was low and gravelly, the syllables of the single word grating against each other as he spoke. Darry stayed where he was, frozen, waiting for the rest of the statement, but that was all he got before Ponyboy’s knees buckled and he collapsed.

Darry was up and out of his bed before Ponyboy even hit the floor, managing to catch him in his arms before his head cracked against the hardwood. “Pony?” he gasped out, suddenly wide awake, the concern in his voice louder than any trace of sleep could be. “Pony, you okay?”

Ponyboy moaned, curling in on himself, his arms wrapped around his stomach. His entire body convulsed as he retched again, this time onto the floor. It was just bile and he kept retching until he was dry heaving, his stomach completely empty.

Darry lifted him, setting him on his bed, placing a trash can near the edge, trying to tell his little brother, even in his delirious state where to throw up, but not really caring if he missed.

Logic told Darry this was just the flu. Maybe a stomach bug. Maybe food poisoning.

Nothing serious.

But the deep seeded fear in his heart whispered something else:

_This is how your brother dies._

_This is how you lose someone else._

_This..._ _this_ _is how you fall apart._

* * *

When Dallas Winston was six years old, he met Johnny Cade and his entire world changed. Overnight, it seemed he became a believer in the unseen and this was purely because it seemed that no matter what happened, no matter where he was, if Johnny was in danger, he knew it long before he saw it.

He knew where to find Johnny the night his father let his friends use him for the first time.

He felt sick the entire time he was in New York, long before he got Darry’s letter.

His arms itched long before he found Johnny in the lot, his arms cut to ribbons with his own switchblade after a night where his father or his mother or both of them just wouldn’t leave him alone.

He knew. He knew when Johnny hurt. He always knew.

It was why when he woke up that morning, the room still dark, he knew long before he heard Johnny retching beside him over the side of the bed into the wastebasket he kept there that he knew, even with how often Johnny got sick anymore, something was very, very wrong.

He turned to look at him, watching the small shadow of his body curl into itself and uncurl just as quickly every time he vomited. He pushed himself upright and pulled himself closer to him. He reached out a hand, but stopped short, afraid to touch him, afraid that somehow that might make it worse or that this was his fault to begin with.

“Johnnycake?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You okay?”

Johnny vomited, shook his head, vomited again. “Somethin’s really wrong, Dallas,” he managed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I –” he dry heaved, “I really don’t feel good.”

Dally pressed his lips into a thin, nervous line.

Everything inside him screamed to take Johnny to the hospital, get the doctors to figure out if it was something life threatening or not, even if Johnny protested, even if Johnny hated him for it.

But he couldn’t do that. Not today. No matter how much he wanted to.

With how often Johnny was sick, Dallas had been missing a lot of work and missing work meant missing house payments, car payments, medical bill payments. Too many payments missed, too many things he needed to pay for that he hadn’t been paying for. It could turn out very bad for them if he didn’t start paying some of these things off. So missing work was no longer an option.

Even when he felt he really needed to.

And he couldn’t miss today. Today was a long shift which meant more money.

“Maybe I should stay home,” he said, despite all of this, already thinking about calling Digger.

“No!” Johnny practically shouted, turning around so fast in bed and grabbing Dally’s arm that it startled him. Johnny’s face was gaunt, hollow, he looked horrible and Dally opened his mouth to protest immediately, but Johnny cut him off, “You gotta go. You know you do. We can’t be homeless, Dal. I-I can’t go back to-to _them_ and...you can’t go backta your old man neither.”

He didn’t need to ask who _them_ was.

His lips became an even thinner line. Johnny was right. But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

“Fine,” he said curtly, “but I’m takin’ ya overta the Curtis’s place. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

This time it was Johnny who had to close his mouth, having been about to protest, not wanting to be a burden on a family he considered to be already under too much stress. He closed his mouth slowly, looking unhappy about it, but he nodded anyway.

In Dally’s opinion, Johnny was too much of a saint sometimes.

* * *

By the time Dallas was showered, dressed, and ready to take Johnny over to the Curtis’s, his condition had rapidly deteriorated. He was covered in a thin layer of sweat, his entire body cold and clammy. His skin was sickeningly pale and he kept rolling around on the bed and moaning, his body curled in on itself, convulsing occasionally when he would lean over the side of the bed to vomit.

Dally was shaking badly as he gathered Johnny in his arms after wrapping him in blankets, not even bothering to get his wheelchair, trying to convince himself that this was something curable, something Not That Bad, something that the kid _wouldn’t_ have to end up going to the hospital for.

But he couldn’t convince himself that any of that was true.

He kept seeing the various hospital rooms Johnny had been admitted into over the last few months, the seemingly hundreds of machines he’d been repeatedly hooked up to, the millions of IVs that had been stuck into his arm over and over again. He heard the voices of the doctors, over and over again telling him that Johnny wasn’t going to make it, that he wasn’t going to survive, that if this happened again he was going to die, and he couldn’t help wondering now if this, this seemingly simple stomach bug, would be the very last straw for his already very weak body.

And by the time Dally climbed the steps to the Curtis’s front porch and kicked at the door, he was shaking even worse if that were even possible, convinced that somehow today was the day that Johnny was going to die, that he was going to go to work and at some point during the day, Darry would call him and that would be the end of anything good in his life. The end of his life period. Because he’d decided long ago that if Johnny died, he would too.

There was no point in living in a world with Johnny dead.

Johnny was the last good thing in this desperate dark hovel of universe.

If Johnny died, he would take everything good with him and Dally would die because he refused to live in a world as black as all that.

Darry opened the door on the second knock, already looking harassed and when he saw Johnny his face fell and he stepped aside wordlessly, saying, “Ponyboy’s sick too. Looks like with the same thing. Somethin’ must be goin’ around.”

Dally swallowed hard. “Where-where should I leave Johnny? I’m...real sorryta do this to ya, Darry, but...I gotta work, man. I missed too many days already. We-we got so many billsta pay. And...I ain’t gonna leave him home alone. Not after...everythin’.”

Darry only nodded, understanding perfectly. He wouldn’t want Johnny home alone.

It was more likely this would kill Johnny than it would Ponyboy, who never got sick anyway.

“I’ll take care of him,” Darry promised, leading Dally into his bedroom where Ponyboy was already. “I promise. If he gets worse, I’ll call ya and take him to the hospital.”

Dally nodded, feeling slightly better and worse at the same time.

 _You shouldn’t be leaving him here alone,_ a nasty voice whispered in his mind. _You’re the one who’s supposed to take care of him. Why are you leaving him here alone? Every time you’ve left him something bad has happened. Do you want something bad to happen now?_

Dally balled his hands into fists, his nails biting his palms. He shook his head slightly as he thanked Darry and headed out the door, walking fast, hoping the burning in his legs would make the voice shut up. He had to work. If he didn’t, things would get worse.

Things _couldn’t_ get worse.

 _Things,_ the voice reminded him nastily, _can_ always _get worse_.

* * *

It was very lucky, Sodapop Curtis thought, watching Darry let Dally into the house that morning, that neither he nor Darry worked today. Somehow they both managed to have a day off on the day they needed it most. In truth, he was supposed to go in later originally, but Digger had called him almost as soon as he’d gotten up, telling him he’d overscheduled for the day and would he mind taking the day off instead. Soda had agreed instantly. In any other situation, he wouldn’t have, but he’d already been awake, already knew that Ponyboy was really sick and Darry was going to need all the help he could get taking care of him. Darry needed him home. One day wasn’t going to affect much of anything.

When Dally arrived, trying to kick the door down, Johnny just as sick with Ponyboy, seemingly with the same illness, Soda was twice as glad that he’d agreed to take the day off.

As sick as Ponyboy was, he was certain Johnny was twice as sick.

The thought scared him.

Ponyboy never got sick and when he did, he recovered quickly. Soda doubted that whatever this was would last longer than a day, maybe two.

Johnny was a different story.

Every time he’d gotten sick since the church fire, he’d ended up in the hospital or at the very least bedridden for a week or two, the doctors telling them that they’d be surprised if he survived whatever was plaguing him now.

Seeing him so sick now made Soda’s heart jump into his throat and his hands shake.

Following Darry and Dally to the bedroom, he felt guilty, being more worried about Johnny than his own brother, but Ponyboy...he’d be fine. He would be. Even looking at the two of them now, side by side, he could tell that Ponyboy wasn’t doing anywhere near as bad as Johnny was.

Darry’s promise to take Johnny to the hospital if he got worse only confirmed his beliefs.

Ponyboy was sick, but Johnny, well...he could die.

Dally left.

“Soda go get cool rags for them, okay?”

Soda nodded, walking stiffly from the bedroom into the kitchen. He filled a bowl with ice halfway, put two rags in the middle, and filled it up the rest of the way.

He worked on autopilot, not really paying much attention to what he was doing, his mind far, far away, thinking of all the horrible awful things that could happen because of this.

 _Please don’t take Johnny,_ he thought desperately. _And don’t take Pony either. The gang’ll fall apart without Johnny...but..._ we’ll _fall apart without Pony._

The gang needed Johnny to keep them together.

They all cared about each other sure, but they all seemed to be united under the same purpose: giving Johnny love, a family, two things the rest of them had all but taken for granted until they met him. If he was gone, Dally would go soon after. All of them knew Dally couldn’t live without Johnny and if Dally _and_ Johnny died...what would happen to the gang? They’d fall apart. They’d never be able to be around each other again without the silence of the two deaths hanging in the air between them.

The gang wouldn’t be able to survive without Johnny.

But Soda knew full well that the Curtis family would not survive without Ponyboy.

As much as Ponyboy thought differently, it was not Soda that was the glue that kept them together. It was Pony. It had always been Pony. And without him?

Soda would disintegrate.

Darry would give up.

The world would be ripped out from under the both of them.

Neither of them would have any more reason for living.

Soda didn’t want to have to find out what the world would be like without him.

 _Don’t you dare take them away,_ he thought, returning to the bedroom. _Don’t you dare._

But he didn’t know if God would listen.

God seemed to like doing anything but pull His punches. He sure hadn’t with their parents.

 _Please…_ Soda begged. He wasn’t strong enough to survive anymore heart break.

* * *

Ponyboy Curtis couldn’t remember what had happened since he’d collapsed in Darry’s doorway just before dawn, the world spinning in circles, his stomach aching. He’d thrown up more. He knew that. His throat was sore from how much he’d vomited in the last few hours. And he was pretty sure he had a fever. That was what these hot and cold flashes were. But other than that, the last few hours hadn’t been spent with everyone else in the waking world. They’d been spent inside his own mind.

In comparison to just about everyone else in the gang, Ponyboy hadn’t been through anything anywhere near as horrific. But the week of the church fire still haunted him. And as he lay in Darry’s bed, sweating and moaning and throwing up, he remembered all of it all at once in terrible intense flashes of feeling and agony, separated only by bright white lights in between.

_The pavement was hot where the Socs pushed him down onto it._

_He could feel the skin of his hands burning as he pressed his fingers into the concrete, the Soc on top of him holding a knife to his throat._

_He felt the knife cut into his skin and he clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached, trying to stop the scream rising in his throat._

_It was more from fear than from pain._

_–_ WHITE FLASH –

_The water was chilled him to the bone, suffocating him before he’d even been under for too long with the way it froze the air in his lungs as he was dunked into the fountain._

_From far away, he could hear Johnny’s voice shouting, telling them to stop._

_From much, much closer, he could hear the Socs laughing._

_He got out of the water for a minute._

_Something was dunked on his face._

_A bit got on his tongue._

_It was rancid, bitter, made him want to vomit, but all he could do was cough._

_Alcohol._

_More laughter._

_Then a scream._

_Then back under the water again._

_Then darkness_

– WHITE FLASH –

_The hospital room was a terrible sterile white and deadly quiet this time of night._

_He didn’t know what time it was. Only that it was late. Too late for them to be here really._

_But they had to be._

_For the dying boy on the bed._

_He watched him, watched the way his badly burned chest struggled to rise and fall, the way no part of him moved. Not even his lips hardly when he spoke._

_He was dying. And there was nothing any of them could do to stop it._

_“Stay gold, Ponyboy,” the boy whispered in his ear. “Stay gold.”_

_And then the machine next to him started to go off, the beeping turning into one long unending note._

_The sound of death._

The worst was last, the moment Ponyboy had been sure he’d lost Johnny forever. And now, lying in Darry’s bed, seeing the moment replayed in his mind on a loop, over and over again, it seemed as though that was what had happened.

He didn’t remember the doctors restarting Johnny’s heart with a defibrillator after several long minutes of loud silence. He didn’t remember Johnny gasping a breath in as his heart began to beat again. He didn’t remember Johnny coming home weeks later after his back and skin graft surgeries and living with Dallas and everything turning out mostly okay.

He only remembered the sound of his death.

And the worst he’d whispered to him right before it.

In his mind, in that bed, Johnny was still dead and he began to sob as he moaned.

“Johnny’s gone,” he gasped out, tears running down his face, mixing with the sweat there, drenching the pillows and the sheets beneath him. “He’s gone. It’s all my fault. He’s gone. He’s gone. He was my best friend and he’s dead and it’s all my fault.”

“No, Ponyboy,” a voice he recognized but could not place replied. “He’s alive. He’s right here. Don’t you remember? Johnny’s okay. He’s right here.”

Pony tried to open his eyes, but they seemed to be glued shut.

He shook his head back and forth, his cheeks hitting each side of the pillow as he did.

“No, he’s gone, he’s gone,” he protested, sobbing so hard his chest ached and he felt like he couldn’t breathe at all. “He’s gone, it’s my fault, he’s gone. He’s gone.”

His world had ended. His best friend had died.

Every other bad memory was nothing in comparison to that one.

No bad memory he ever had again ever would be.

* * *

Steve Randle initially went to the Curtis house because he knew Digger had called Soda, asking him not to come in today and, to his shock and amazement, Soda had agreed. That wasn’t like him. No one in the gang was doing well financially, but the Curtis’s were doing worst than just about all of them except for Dally and Johnny and that was because they were three kids living together, struggling to make ends meet on a house that had been left to them because their parents died. Normally, Soda was in to work every day, even when Digger asked if he could stay home because he overscheduled, Soda would ask Digger to ask someone else not to come in.

For Soda to agree this time, something had to be wrong.

Steve had a short morning shift today. He went in at seven and left around two thirty. By the time he arrived at the Curtis’s house, it was almost three. He whistled as he walked in the front door, hanging his jacket up on one of the hooks Darry had drilled into the wall not too long ago after getting sick of everyone just dropping their jackets in a chaotic pile by the door.

To his surprise, no one came to greet him.

Steve drew his brows together.

This was unusual. Everything about today was unusual.

He paused in the living room for a moment, his hands shoved into the pockets his jeans. It took him several moments before he realized the house was _not_ dead silent: there was noise coming from Darry’s bedroom at the back of the house.

Walking slowly, he headed in that direction.

He was halfway down the hall when the door opened and Two-Bit came out, looking grim.

“Two!” he called as his friend headed in the direction of the bathroom.

Two-Bit stopped halfway, turning to Steve, but his expression didn’t change at all. “Hey man.”

Steve jogged to catch up to him. “What’s goin’ on, man? Soda let Digger take him off the schedule today. He don’t ever do that. What’s up?”

Two-Bit looked away. “Ponyboy and Johnny are sick. Real sick. Darry thinks Pony is gonna be okay. Soda too. But...I dunno about Johnny, man. His fever just ain’t goin’ down and he keeps gaspin’ for air. Darry hadta go over to his placeta get his oxygen tank earlier cause he was havin’ trouble breathin’. Both of em keep moanin’ and sayin’ stuff that don’t make no sense.”

Steve swallowed hard, his throat going dry, his heart beginning to pound.

Ponyboy never got sick, but the fact he was sick enough to be spouting nonsense during a fever made him nervous, even if Darry and Soda _did_ think he would be okay.

Johnny was another story. Johnny being sick was unusual. In fact, it was pretty much par for the course at this point, but every time he got sick, it was almost always deadly and ended in hospitalization and the doctors telling them there was a chance he wouldn’t make it.

Blinking, trying to keep himself in the moment instead of the potential future, Steve said, “What kinda stuff are they sayin’?”

“Pony keeps sayin’ Johnny’s dead,” Two-Bit replied, looking away again. He was in the bathroom now, washing his hands. “And...Johnny keeps sayin’ ‘No’ and ‘stop’ and ‘please.’” Two-Bit was quiet for a moment, swallowing, staring at his hands as he slowly turned off the sink. “I think he’s rememberin’ what his old man and the Socs’ve doneta him.”

Steve didn’t know what to say.

Johnny clearly wasn’t dead, but Ponyboy didn’t seem to know that right now.

And Johnny...to have to remember all of those horrible things…Steve would’ve taken his pain for him if he could’ve. He could tell from the look on Two-Bit’s face he would’ve done the same.

Steve took a breath. “I’m gonna go see if they need my help with...anythin’,” he said.

Two-Bit nodded but didn’t reply.

Steve was sure they were thinking the same thing: _What could we possibly do to help anyway?_

The closed bedroom door seemed twice as ominous now that Steve knew what lay beyond. As tough as all the greasers were, when it came to their own being in pain or hurting in anyway, they were all pretty weak and Steve knew long before he opened the door this was taking a toll on all of them.

Two-Bit was enough proof of that.

Bracing himself he opened the door.

Ponyboy lay on the side of the bed closest to the door. Soda sat next to him, holding one of his hands, dabbing his sweating forehead with a cool rag that he kept dipping into a mostly melted bowl of ice. Johnny was on the other side of the bed, struggling to breathe even with the oxygen mask on his face. Darry was dabbing at his forehead too, but he seemed afraid to touch him otherwise.

Darry looked up with his eyes for a brief moment when Steve came into the room. “He keeps screamin’ whenever I touch him,” he said quietly, answering the unspoken question Steve wanted to ask. Darry swallowed hard. “I dunno what he’s seein’, but...it-it ain’t good.”

Soda looked at Darry sadly.

Everyone seemed lost as to what to do.

Steve didn’t even ask how he could help because how _could_ he help?

Johnny looked like he was dying. Ponyboy looked like he was on the verge of a mental collapse. And Soda and Darry seemed just as lost as he and Two-Bit felt.

 _We don’t deserve this shit,_ Steve thought bitterly, his fingers curling into fists. _We go through so much already. We don’t deserveta have our friends hurt like this. Especially not Johnny._

But life wasn’t fair.

All of them had learned that the very hard way.

But that didn’t mean any of them really knew how to deal with it yet.

* * *

Johnny was sick and tired of being sick and tired, but this illness went beyond the usual sick and tiredness he usually felt. This was horrific, terrifying, brutal because not only was he sick, not only was he throwing up and struggling to breathe while sweating and shivering with a dangerously high fever, he was also seeing every harrowing, awful thing that had ever happened to him.

He wasn’t sure what exactly triggered it, but it seemed every time he breathed deeply, every time he moved, every time someone touched him, he would see something he had hoped and prayed that he would never have to see again.

Darry touching his arm, trying to soothe him as he thrashed and moaned.

_Pain flashed all over as he was thrown to the ground, jarring the bruises and welts left by his father the night before._

_But now it was a new night, a night where nothing had happened yet, and his father didn’t care if he hurt him before, he would hurt him again._

_And again._

_And again._

_And again._

_He would hurt him until he broke. And he wouldn’t care about what he’d done either._

_He curled in on himself, trying to lessen the blows._

_He was pulled apart as his father tired of beating him and wanted more._

_He wanted to scream. Protest. Kick and shout._

_But that wouldn’t help anything, he knew that._

_It would only make it worse. So very much worse._

_And_ _then he would be wishing he were dead._

_So he did nothing._

_And he let it happen._

_And he still wished he was dead._

A small gasp of much needed air as someone put his oxygen mask on his face.

_The fire had been a rush of euphoria, a happy need, something good to do even if what had caused it was his fault and if he didn’t go in children would die because of him._

_But now it was a nightmare._

_He’d stayed in the building too long. He knew that now. There was too much smoke and a horrible creaking above him told him he had to get out_ now _or he was going to regret it._

_He headed towards the rectangle of light, the direction all the smoke went towards and it tried to escape the confines of the flaming church._

_He was two steps away from the rectangle when a crashing sounded from above him._

_He pushed his hands forward, forcing Ponyboy out of the rectangle as the wood crashed down around him, pulling him briefly into blackness and pinning him beneath its embers._

_When the blackness melted away, there was only fire and agony._

_He screamed louder than he had ever screamed in life._

_He knew he was dying._

A slight readjustment of his hips in bed to make himself more comfortable.

_The fistful of rings hit his face first, creating a deep gash that immediately began to bleed._

_He fell to the ground, shaking fingers going up to the gash, coming away bright red._

_“Stupid fucking freak,” the assailant said, towering over him, his hands balled into fists._

_For a moment, he couldn’t tell the difference between this boy’s silhouette and his father’s._

_It turned out they were very much alike._

_The boy and his friends beat him until they were exhausted, until he was nothing more than a limp piece of meat on the ground, too hurt and exhausted himself to move._

_Then they did worse._

_Much worse._

_They took turns, each of him doing their best to hurt him worse than the person before and when they all finished, they went back for seconds, thirds._

_He would never be sure later how many times they all had their way with him._

_And the worst part was all he could do was lie there and hope he died instead._

Whatever reality he’d been attached to when he’d woken up that morning had been ripped away by the fever he’d experienced ever since.

He didn’t remember surviving anything.

He didn’t even remember Dallas and the gang saving him so many times.

All he remembered was the agony, the pain.

And the unwavering belief that pain was what he’d been born into this world to feel.

* * *

Two-Bit Matthews spent most of his time at the Curtis’s house no matter the situation or the weather. If they were going through bad times, he was there to help them through it. If there was a party happening later, he was there to help them plan it. If Ponyboy needed help with homework, he was there to help him or there to keep Darry company while he made dinner or there to help Soda clean up the house when Darry had to work late.

So it made sense that when Ponyboy got sick and Johnny had to stay with them for the day, he was there to help take care of both of them.

At first, he’d tried to joke, tried to make everything funny, tried to make things easier for Soda and Darry as they took care of Ponyboy and Johnny, but as the hours wore by and time went on, it got harder and harder for him to do.

Ponyboy was having serious delusions, believing that Johnny was dead, that he was being drowned all over again. They were making him even more upset and sick than he already was.

And Johnny...well...Johnny just looked like he was dying.

Two-Bit was rarely worried about anything, but in the weeks since the church fire he’d experienced more worry than he had in all the rest of the years of his life put together.

And as much as he pretended it didn’t, he knew it was starting to wear on him.

And it was mostly because of how many times the gang as a whole had been told that Johnny had to be hospitalized and that he might not make it.

The gang loved each other and hung out with each other outside of Johnny, sure, but he was the glue that kept them together, the only thing that kept them all from falling apart.

Without Johnny there was no gang.

And the thought that Johnny could die from a fever because of an act of heroism that ruined his body and destroyed his immune system was too unfair for Two-Bit or anyone else to bear.

Two-Bit stared at his hands in the bathroom after Steve went into the bedroom to see how everyone was doing. They were shaking badly and he couldn’t get himself to move.

What would happen to _him_ if Johnny died?

Nothing good.

He knew Dallas would kill himself, but what about him?

He supposed he would too. Johnny was like his little brother. And, though he didn’t talk about it, Two-Bit’s life wasn’t exactly cheerful or even okay. His father was never around and when he was, he was passed out drunk. His mother was always yelling at him for something and when she wasn’t, she was so high she couldn’t even tell what time of day it was.

Johnny really was the last beacon of light and hope in the world for him.

If he died, Two-Bit figured, he might as well die too.

Because if the world couldn’t give Johnny Cade a happy ending, what made him think it would give anyone else that either?

* * *

Later, Dally would never be sure how he managed to get through his entire shift without having a complete mental collapse. He didn’t get any calls from Darry the entire time he was working and tried to convince himself that was a good thing. No news was good news. And he knew that if Darry’d had to take Johnny to the hospital or if something worse had happened, Darry would’ve called him.

When Digger finally told him he could go home, it was well past the time he was supposed to get off and it was already dark outside. He stumbled to the Curtis’s house in a haze, ready to pick up Johnny and head home, telling himself over and over again that Johnny was okay, that everything was alright, that he was worried for no reason.

 _It could be that he forgot to call you,_ a voice whispered in his mind. _Or had to get him to the hospital so quickly he didn’t have time to call. Maybe he died and he’s too grief and guilt stricken to call you and tell you what happened._

Dally didn’t want to believe any of this and dug his nails so deep into his palms he drew blood.

_He’s fine._

He told himself this with every step he took.

_He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine._

Dally wasn’t entirely present when he knocked on the Curtis’s front door and when Darry answered and stepped aside to look him in, his hair disheveled, his eyes gaunt and hollow, looking entirely exhausted and defeated, for a moment, he was certain that his worst fears had been realized.

“He’s finally asleep,” Darry said, closing the door behind Dally. “He was havin’ flashbacks of...bad things all day. He finally fell asleep an hour ago. Soda’s watchin’ em. But...I would leave him alone for a while. Or for the night if ya want. You can stay here on the sofa.”

Dally only nodded, unable to voice his relief it overwhelmed him so much.

“Can I see him?” he asked.

It was strange how such a simple question could make him feel like he’d found Johnny in the hospital anyway.

Darry nodded. “Be real quiet though. Pony’s finally asleep too.”

Dally nodded again, a silent promise.

Soda looked up from his perch in the corner where he was reading a book when Dally opened the door – quiet enough he didn’t make a sound. He closed it and stood, giving Dally a weary smile as he said, “Call if you need anythin’. Or anythin’ changes.”

Dally nodded again.

It seemed he’d become speechless.

He slumped into the chair as Soda closed the door – just as quietly as Dally had opened it – behind him. He stared at Johnny and Pony’s sleeping forms. It seemed at some point during the day Darry had gone to get Johnny’s oxygen. Dally wondered what had happened to make that necessary and decided he was better off not knowing.

But the end result was still the same.

Johnny made it through again.

Dally wanted to be happy about that.

Wanted to feel relief, exuberance, _some_ thing good.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

All he could think was:

_How many more times can his body be broken before it finally_ _gives up?_

**Author's Note:**

> idk howta feel about this overall, but i hope the person who requested it likes it!!


End file.
